Racial Battle Fatigue: The Labor & Resilience of Women of Color in the Education Space

Mar 23

The System Isn’t Just Draining Us. It’s Dimming Our Light.

Hey, Collective,

Yesterday, I had the honor of presenting at the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium (PEDC) Southeast PA (SEPA) Regional Hub on “Racial Battle Fatigue: The Labor & Resilience of Women of Color in the Education Space.” We weren’t just talking theory—we were naming a lived reality. Racial battle fatigue (Smith, 2004) is not metaphor—it is diagnosis. It is the emotional and physical toll of constantly navigating bias, the accumulated exhaustion of translating our worth to systems that refuse to see us, and the quiet grief of brilliance buried under bureaucracy.

I opened with this quote by adrienne maree brown:

It’s worthwhile to protect the miracle of our lives right now. I think it’s a shift from control to care. And I think that it’s a liberating path. I think it’s anticapitalist to move into a care-based way of thinking of each other and thinking of community.

And what followed was not a conversation of performance—but of return. Return to self, to breath, to belonging.

Because the system doesn’t just drain us. It distracts us. It teaches us to be twice as good, to carry the labor of equity while being denied the resources to rest. It tells us our strength is admirable, but our care is optional. And in this culture of overwork and erasure, we are left not only burnt out—but emotionally homeless (Bryant, 2023).

So this week’s newsletter is a refusal. A refusal to measure worth by resilience. A refusal to name exhaustion as a badge of honor. A refusal to forget that we are, each of us, a miracle.

The Power of Discovery: Unmasking the Disguises of Oppression

Discovery is not simply noticing what’s wrong—it is a spiritual reckoning. It is naming what systems hope we forget. It is sitting in the heat of our own knowing and refusing to look away.

In our PEDC conversation, hosted by Dr. Heather Bennett, we explored how (micro)aggressions aren’t small—they’re cumulative. They build into physical ailments, spiritual weariness, and quiet resignation. We connected racial battle fatigue to hypertension, anxiety, and the emotional toll of constantly being “the only one” in rooms that ask for our brilliance while denying our humanity.

We talked about how Black and Brown women are more than effective educators—we are cultural bearers. Mentors. Connectors. Bridge-builders. Our mere presence in these institutions is resistance. Our care, our relational leadership, our lived experience—these are not footnotes. They are the foundation.

But too often, our labor is extracted and unacknowledged. We are expected to persevere without support, to teach without truth, to lead without rest.

So we named it. And naming is a form of refusal.

Power of Discovery Curiosities:

What are the narratives, beliefs, and systems that have shaped how I see my labor, my resilience, and my worth?
Where has busyness replaced purpose in my life?
What have I abandoned in order to survive—my creativity, my joy, my truth?

The Power of Discernment: Staying With Our Assignment

Discernment is what keeps us tethered to truth in a world that demands performance. It’s what allows us to know the difference between what’s urgent and what’s sacred.

We spoke of a deep fatigue. The kind that doesn’t go away with a nap. The kind that grows in silence, in the gap between what we know is true and what we’re forced to accept. And still, the unjust system calls us to abandon our assignment. To flee like the naked man in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14: 51-52), running from his calling when the weight of witnessing becomes too much.

But what if discernment helps us stay? Not in the systems, but in ourselves? What if the sacred work is not martyrdom, but memory? What if it’s not about doing more, but about remembering what we were called to create before the system demanded our assimilation?

Power of Discernment Curiosities:

What does it feel like when I’m aligned with my assignment?
What is the emotional and physical toll of constantly being positioned as resilient?
How do I shift from being seen as “strong enough to endure” to being supported enough to thrive?

The Power of Determination: Reclaiming What the System Tried to Steal

Determination is what rises when memory returns. It’s not productivity. It’s not performance. It is the sacred reclamation of what the world tried to bury.

At PEDC, we remembered the brilliance that institutions attempt to erase. We honored the contributions of Black and Brown women educators who have always been at the forefront of transformation—not just through teaching, but through mentorship, resistance, and imagination.

We talked about what it means to move beyond resilience—to collective well-being. Real support means more than praise. It means redistributing labor. Investing resources. Removing structural barriers. Uplifting the leadership, research, and labor of Black and Brown women in education—not as the exception, but as the standard.

And it means practicing freedom dreaming, which is giving yourself permission to be curious, to be creative, be connected to your aspirations.

And imagination is a muscle. It must be protected. Practiced. Watered. That means resting when we’re told to grind. Creating when we’re told to comply. Speaking when we’re told to shrink.

Let this weekend be a return to your assignment. Not the job. Not the title. The calling.

Power of Determination Curiosities:

What part of my brilliance needs space to re-emerge?
Resilience is often seen as an individual trait, but what happens when we make well-being a collective priority?
What courageous actions can I take to shift the conditions that make resilience a survival apparatus rather than a choice?

Closing Reflection: We Are Not The System’s Machinery

You are not here to hold up what was never built to hold you.

Do not confuse your exhaustion for evidence of value. Do not wear busyness like armor. Do not let the grind seduce you into forgetting your sacred assignment.

This system will praise your resilience while feeding on your depletion. It will call you strong so it doesn’t have to call itself accountable. But, strength is not your only name.

There is a shift stirring—from enduring alone to being supported enough to soar. From carrying it all to carving out space to breathe, to create, to rest, to remember.

Your brilliance has not disappeared—it has been buried under the noise. But it is still here. Still holy. Still yours.

Return to yourself. Not in fragments, but in full.

You are not here to be useful to broken systems. You are here to be free.

In solidarity, action, and love,

Amber

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